LaBonne received her bachelor's degree from the University of Rochester,[1] doing research with Sayeeda Zain on the molecular basis of Alzheimer's disease.

As a National Science Foundation pre-doctoral Fellow working with Malcolm Whitman, LaBonne characterized the role of FGF signaling in formation of the mesendoderm.

She showed that formation of neural crest cells, a stem cell population unique to vertebrates, required both attenuation of endogenous BMP signaling and active Wnt signaling, and further showed that up regulation of the zinc-finger transcriptional repressor SNAI2 could bypass the need for BMP inhibition.

[9] LaBonne has served as co-leader of the Tumor Environment and Metastasis Program in Northwestern's Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center since 2005.

LaBonne's group subsequently demonstrated that Id3 was a key Myc target in maintaining neural crest potency.